Chapter 577: Wormwood

After days of bitter fighting, Gaotang City fell. The Qin army surged in, and the outer walls were completely lost.

But the qingxia Yue Bian no longer cared about any of that. The only thing he wanted to do now was stop his fellow villager's foolish act: his young friend was trying to stuff his spilling intestines back into his belly!

When the Qin army broke through and street fighting began, Yue Bian and his fellow villager had together stabbed an armored Qin soldier to death, but the villager's stomach had also been slashed open by a sharp Qin sword. Yue Bian had fought desperately to shield him and drag him back to the inner city.

After hauling and dragging him the whole way, once they reached safety, the villager realized in horror that his belly was torn open and his guts were spilling out. Beyond the pain, what he felt most was terror. With filthy hands, he desperately tried to push the bloody intestines back where they belonged. But the more he shoved, the more they spilled out, until he could only let out a hopeless wail that drew the attention of every survivor inside the inner city.

There were still a few physicians atop the wall, but they only tended to the lightly wounded. An injury this severe was beyond any hope of treatment...

Yue Bian comforted him feebly, but could offer no real help. His fellow villager's voice grew hoarser by the moment, and his blood slowly drained away.

At that moment, a towering figure stepped before him, knelt on one knee, and stilled the young man's thrashing.

"Enough."

It was the Chancellor Tian Dan. His face was anguished, his eyes bloodshot. To resist the Qin assault, Tian Dan had not slept for days, personally braving arrows and stones atop the wall to boost morale — but it had done nothing to improve the situation.

The Qin general Heifu was indeed a veteran of a hundred battles, rich in experience. He surrounded three sides and left one open, constantly making false shows of strength. He even had the people of Linzi brought forward to shout into the city in the Linzi dialect, telling them that Linzi had not been massacred. If Gaotang City fell, apart from the chief rebels, ordinary people need only leave the city and surrender to be spared execution.

As a result, an endless stream of men deserted by climbing over the western wall, and the defenders' resolve to fight to the death crumbled.

What followed was a ferocious Qin assault. Under covering fire from archers on earthen mounds, countless Qin soldiers pushed siege towers slowly toward the city wall. On the other side, over ten trebuchets launched a fierce bombardment. Though their accuracy was terrible and they could not inflict heavy casualties on the Qi men atop the wall, their intimidation was absolute.

The Qi men resisted with all their might. Over several days, they destroyed two siege towers and wrecked a Qin battering ram at the city gate. But as dozens of scaling ladders hooked onto the battlements, the exhausted Qi men could not plug every breach. The bitter fighting began on the wall, slowly shifted to the gate, then devolved into street fighting and rout...

The Right Commander Tian Rong led a group of qingxia in an attempted breakout from the city's west side, but after charging out, they were ambushed by Dongjun troops and annihilated. Tian Rong also fell in battle; his head now hung from a Qin camp banner.

Losing Tian Rong was like losing Tian Dan's right arm. On the retreat to the inner city, Tian Dan had watched countless men die. For the wounded, he did his utmost to have the lightly injured rescued and brought inside; the heavily wounded, he could only grant a swift, merciful death.

After asking the wounded man's name and native place, Tian Dan nodded to Yue Bian. Yue Bian gritted his teeth and, with his own hands, drove a sharp blade into his fellow villager's chest. The struggling stopped, and silence fell around them, broken only by the intermittent groans of the other wounded.

"Chancellor."

Yue Bian knelt, tears in his eyes. He had something he wanted to ask Tian Dan.

"My name is Yue Bian — 'Bian' as in a carrying pole. I am a qingxia of Le'an County..."

Tian Dan nodded. Too many had followed him in this uprising; he could not remember every single one.

Yue Bian continued: "This fellow villager of mine, he was only seventeen. He had a father and mother at home, two brothers, and an elder sister. When he heard in Le'an that the Chancellor was rising against Qin, he did not hesitate for a moment. He followed me, drew his sword, and killed Qin officials to welcome the Chancellor."

Just as Liu Ji was deeply influenced by Lord Xinling, the qingxia of Qi were a generation raised on the stories of Tian Dan and Wangsun Jia. They possessed the temperament of renxia, and influenced by Tian Dan's deeds, they also harbored a measure of patriotic sentiment. The two combined, along with the injustices of their own circumstances, drove Yue Bian and the others to kill Qin officials and answer Tian Dan's call.

They had once believed they were undertaking a cause of loyalty and righteousness — that they could not only drive the hated Qin out of Qi, never again letting them use harsh laws to constrain the qingxia, but also, once Qi was restored and rewards were given for merit, change their impoverished circumstances and rise above others...

So at first, the qingxia's morale was high and their spirits urgent. A qingxia's martial honor valued reputation and face above all else; for these two things, they could kill others, and they could kill themselves. They were certain this was a golden opportunity to leave their names in history.

Until they tasted the reality of war.

War was nothing like a personal duel. There were no individual heroes here — only ceaselessly flying arrows and ceaselessly falling men. When the various Tian leaders realized they were outmatched and began to retreat, defeat settled into every heart. Shoes fell apart during the endless marches; clothes were torn to rags by bushes and branches.

By then, they had no leisure to care about chivalry. To fill their bellies and dress comfortably, they began plundering common folk and committed many evil acts to vent the fear in their hearts.

In May, the summer rains fell unceasingly. Many fell ill. The camp stank. Lying on moldy straw, many began to yearn for the life they had before the uprising.

"It was a bit hard, a bit stifling, and we weren't free — but at least we could scrape by..."

Even so, faced with rumors that the Qin army would "massacre the city," they fought on stubbornly to stay alive. Watching friends crushed by great stones, watching a fellow villager's guts spill out, and finally sending him to the Wormwood with their own hands — the taste of it was bitter indeed.

So in the end, a question rose unbidden in Yue Bian's heart: What had he actually gotten involved in this war for?

What were they truly fighting for? And what would they die for?

A question from a mere foot soldier, yet it struck Tian Dan's heart like a heavy hammer.

To restore the kingdom? To repay the Tian clan of Qi for generations of patronage? To repay Tian Dan himself for over a decade of aid and small kindnesses?

Tian Dan could no longer speak high-minded words. As this war neared its end and annihilation loomed, even he had fallen into doubt.

He had once aspired to achieve deeds like Tian Dan and Wangsun Jia — to bare his right shoulder and rise up, to become the hero who restored the state of Qi.

But reality told him that not everyone could accomplish what Lord Anping had.

The times had changed, and the situation had changed. This rebellion had become a futile thrashing. Tian Rong and Tian Du had fallen in battle one after another; his former retainers were decimated. Even the Qi King Tian Jia, whom he had propped up, had been separated during the Qin army's breach and was likely cowering and shivering in some corner right now.

And now, what Tian Dan regretted most was this: of the over twenty thousand who followed him, countless had died in battle. Those who survived by luck would soon be brutally slaughtered. And under Qin's harsh, draconian laws, their families would be implicated — far more than a hundred thousand souls. These were all good people of Qi who cherished their homeland, yet they were to be exterminated. The restoration of Qi — from this point on, utterly hopeless.

He had not become Qi's great benefactor, but the Tian clan's greatest sinner...

Just as Tian Dan remained silent for a long moment, a booming voice answered the question in his stead.

"A true man born into this world cries out against injustice and rises with his sword — what other reason could there be?"

The speaker was Tian Heng.

Tian Heng was bare-chested, his body covered in wounds and bloody. A crossbow bolt was even deeply embedded in his thigh, making him limp as he walked. But he had only wrapped it casually with cloth. Leaning on a spear, he stood atop the wall, looking at Tian Dan and addressing everyone:

"The two-hundred-year altars of Qi were destroyed in a single day. King Jian of Qi was starved to death among the pines and cypresses. I witnessed my ancestral state's ruin and cried out against this injustice. So I left my home, hid beyond the seas, and plotted revenge!"

"Qin ruled Qi with Qin officials, harshly mistreating the noble clans, treating the various Tian like pigs and sheep — slaughtering some, deporting others. As a member of the Tian clan, I cried out against this injustice. So I rallied men and returned!"

With that, he declared loudly: "These are my reasons for opposing Qin! As for those like the Yan clan, the disciples of the public academy, or the left-side dwellers of Yeyi — they received handouts from the Qin and live perfectly well. Why would they rebel? Out of sheer idleness? You men followed my brothers and me against Qin because of the injustice in your hearts. Back then, you didn't ask for reasons; you killed officials and welcomed us. Now, at death's door, you want to ponder why you rebelled? What use is that?"

Tian Heng's self-account was blunt, but it struck Tian Dan like a revelation.

"Is this what they mean by 'a dying man's words are kind'?"

Tian Dan burst out laughing. Tian Heng was no good with words and was single-minded to a fault, but only a man like him could remain unswerving unto death in what he did!

His smile faded, and he answered Yue Bian's question: "The Qin swept away the various Tian one by one. I cried out against the injustice that the Tian clan, rooted in Di County for a hundred years with flourishing branches, should be forcibly uprooted. That is why I rebelled."

"In Qi's commanderies and counties, no member of the Tian clan could serve as a senior official. I cried out against the injustice that, full of ambition, I could only be a commoner. That is why I rose up. The ancestral altars that the fatuous King Jian of Qi and his mediocre minister Hou Sheng squandered — I would seize them back by my own ability!"

Tian Dan did not merely want to be "Tian Dan." He even wanted to do what Tian Dan had not: kick the incompetent, mediocre royal house aside and become the King of Qi himself!

Every one of the few hundred men remaining in the inner city had their own "injustice."

The sea bandits under Tian Heng, the former Qi soldiers and officials, cried out against losing everything they once had, against the fate of being blockaded by the Qin army and starved to death on their sea islands.

Yue Bian and the other qingxia martial artists cried out against the Qin laws that suppressed them and denied them freedom. When faced with injustice, to rise with the sword — was that not exactly what a qingxia should do?

Galvanized by Tian Heng, the Tian Dan who would rather die for the cause than sit and wait for death returned. He swept his gaze over the crowd:

"To vent the injustice in your hearts, you men followed my brothers and me in two months of chaos, battling across ten counties — a spectacular, earth-shaking affair that made all under Heaven look on. But alas, the time and tide were against us. Now only a few hundred remain, facing an assault by tens of thousands of Qin soldiers. Death is certain. Does any man here regret it and wish to surrender?"

"If so, please cut off Tian Dan's head and present it to that Qin general Heifu. You will not only live, but be richly rewarded!"

A stretch of silence — then immediately, Yue Bian, the one who had first questioned Tian Dan, spat and said:

"Prime Minister, at this point, those who fear death, those who regret, those who should flee have long since fled. Those who could follow you here would rather die than surrender to Qin. Are these words an insult to our chivalric swordsmanship? If we die, we die — we only wish to drag a few more Qin soldiers down with us into the grave!"

"Hear, hear!" The gathered retainers and knights-errant roared their agreement.

Tian Heng, stirred by their resolve, endured the wounds on his body and beat his chest. "Elder Brother, if Tian Heng can die on Qi soil, die in Gaotang where our ancestors rose — I will have no regrets either!"

"Nor will we!"

The sea bandits who had followed Tian Heng back from Sandgate Island also shouted their fervent assent; he was a man who truly "looked upon death as a homecoming."

"Prime Minister, Left Commander — the Qin army is here!"

The warning cry rang out. Tian Dan and Tian Heng stood atop the inner wall and looked out. There, on the streets of Gaotang's outer ward, the Qin army had finally appeared — still those dark banners, every man bearing shield and sword, formed in tight ranks, advancing slowly forward.

The Qin forces had already seized the outer ward's gates and mopped up scattered resistance. Now, under Heifu's orders, they were preparing to crush this rebellion once and for all…

This inner stronghold was, in truth, the old Gaotang traveling palace from the Tian Qi era. Its walls rose barely two zhang high. The defenders had now fallen back to the "Gaotang Terrace" within. If the Qin army simply pushed forward, breaching the walls would be all too easy.

The crowd fell silent — but unlike their earlier hesitation, now their hearts were set on death.

"How many of us remain?"

Tian Dan asked even as he counted heads himself. Someone soon told him: "Only five hundred…"

"To die alongside five hundred warriors — that is Tian Dan's good fortune!"

Tian Dan looked at the wounds covering Tian Heng. "Heng, my brother, can you still fight?"

Tian Heng laughed aloud. "Elder Brother, you once told me that when Xingtian was beheaded, he used his nipples as eyes, his navel as a mouth, and brandished shield and axe to dance. I've only ruined one leg — what of it?"

"Good!"

Tian Dan drew a deep breath, gazed at the Qin soldiers drawing ever closer, ever more numerous, and issued his final command as Prime Minister of Qi.

"Open the gates! Meet the foe! Even if we die, we shall fight with all our strength and perish in battle!"

No one objected. The inner stronghold's gates were slowly pushed open. Every man on the Gaotang Terrace gripped his weapon and faced the Qin army's mighty bows and powerful crossbows head-on.

Though Tian Heng had boasted he could fight, in truth his wounds cut to the bone. He took a few steps forward and nearly stumbled — it was Tian Dan who steadied him and helped him up.

"Elder Brother…" Tian Heng's voice caught. His blood brother Tian Rong had already been beheaded, but his cousin Tian Dan was a true brother to him all the same.

No more words. Just as when they were children, the brothers supported each other — one leaning on a spear, the other gripping a sword — eyes red as they watched Qin troops ten, twenty times their number close in around them.

Tian Dan suddenly smiled.

"We may die without regret, yet this scene, with no song to accompany it — what a pity."

"Who says there is no song?"

Tian Heng leaned on his spear shaft and said, "On that little island, we had nothing else to do — only impassioned, mournful songs to pass the hours. But that is a song for sending off the dead. Would Elder Brother hear it?"

"A funeral song? Nothing could be better!"

Tian Dan clapped his hands and laughed. The Qin troops were nearer now — they could almost make out the patterns on their armor. At the final moment, he saw many beside him still trembling uncontrollably — until Tian Heng's bold, sorrowful voice rose in song.

"Dew on the scallions, how swiftly it dries…"

The sea bandits who had returned from Sandgate Island opened their mouths and, with hoarse voices, joined Tian Heng's song.

"Dew dries, yet tomorrow it falls once more — but a man dies and is gone; when does he return?"

…

The sorrowful, heroic song rose from the last surviving terrace of Gaotang, and it reached Heifu's ears as well.

Heifu could not understand the Qi folk's song. He sent for the turncoat interpreters, Yan Hua and Lai Sheng, and asked what those men about to die were singing.

Yan Hua listened for a moment, his face going pale, and remained silent for a long while. Lai Sheng lowered his head and said they were singing:

"Whose land is Wormwood Vale? It gathers in souls, no matter wise or foolish.

How the ghost bailiff urges them on! A man's life is granted not a moment's lingering!"

He explained, "The people of Qi believe that when a man dies, his spirit returns to Wormwood Vale near Mount Tai, where there is no distinction between wise and foolish, noble and base. General, this is a funeral song…"

Heifu, hearing this, said with surprise, "Are they singing it for themselves?"

Moments ago, when the inner stronghold's gates had swung open, his subordinates had suspected either a trick or that the Tian brothers meant to surrender. But once he heard the meaning of this song, Heifu understood.

These several hundred men, stubbornly resisting to the end, had already set their hearts on death!

How urgently the ghost bailiff drives them on — granting not a sliver of hesitation. These rebels who sought to restore Qi no longer wavered, and the Qin army was the death-hastening ghost bailiff, come to send the insurgents to Wormwood Vale!

On the battlefield, there was no room for the slightest pity. At Heifu's wave, the attack drums began to pound. The Qin troops advanced in orderly step, their five weapons intermingled, pressing forward together — like the great tide of an era, come to grind every boulder to dust.

Yet that boulder stood utterly unmoved, meeting the violent surge head-on.

The several hundred rebels on the Gaotang Terrace let out a single united cry and launched their final charge against the Qin army!

It was a suicidal assault. Under the Qin crossbows, one vivid life after another returned to Wormwood Vale, vanishing as swiftly as dew drops dried by the sun…

But the songs of Scallion Dew and Wormwood Vale did not cease. They lingered over the battlements of Gaotang, rising and falling with the spears and halberds, entwined with the flying arrows — yet growing fainter, and fainter…

Until the last living "rebel" was beheaded — and only then did the singing abruptly stop!

At this sight, even Heifu, who had thought himself long inured to the fall of kingdoms and the carnage of battle, his heart hardened to iron, could not help but be moved.

"Qi did not perish when King Jian of Qi surrendered and entered the Qin court…"

Those who moments ago had resolutely sung their way to death now lay as corpses strewn across the ground, utterly lifeless.

Heifu spurred his horse forward, surveyed the corpse-choked city of Gaotang, then raised his head and sighed heavily: "Qi perished here — in this very moment!"

PS: Only one long chapter today. "Scallion Dew" and "Wormwood Vale" are historically the funeral songs composed by Tian Heng's retainers for him, but I liked them so much I had them appear early.

(End of chapter)